He never dreamed of the torment he caused
them, and which they knew how to conceal from him. Even the idea of such
a thing never occurred to him. As they loved him, they loved him just as
he was, in the raw. He was too young to dissimulate, too young to spare
them. He knew nothing either of lies or of pity. He never thought that
any one could suffer anguish about a son or a brother when this son and
brother was himself supremely happy in his vocation. He was naively
cruel.
But the rounds and reconnaissances were not to hold him long; and he
already scented other adventures. He had scented the odor of the beast,
and he had his airplane furnished with a support for a machine-gun. That
particular airplane, it is true, came to an untimely end in a ditch, but
was already condemned by its body-frame, which was rotten with bullet
holes. That was the only "wood" Guynemer "broke" during his early
flights.
But his next airplane was also armed, and in the young pilot could
already be plainly seen that taste for enemy-chasing which was to
bewitch and take possession of him. Though after this time he certainly
carried over the lines Lieutenant de Lavalette, Lieutenant Colcomb and
Captain Simeon, and always with equal calm, yet he aspired to other
flights, further away from earth.
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